Customer Reviews

Analysis and Design of Information Systems

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this book after seeing some of Dr. Lang's lectures at Columbia University on business analysis tools and database design, which were very well explained.

However, it became clear this book was not up to date, where for example stakeholders are referred to as user interfaces, and further, this kind of obtuseness carries on in the explanations of most of the topics and does not reflect the maturity of the topic as it stands today. Should have checked the published date - 2001.

All is not lost however... it does provide good coverage of the core concepts and tools used in business analysis and design such as JAD, data modeling, decomposition, ERDs, normalization and the use of object orientated design. Still, every other topic needs a lot of updating. In 2001, it would have rated close to 5 stars, but not any more.

this book is an insightful, thorough and straightforward examination of the art and practise of information system design. however, it's difficult to really incorporate its lessons unless you are using it in conjunction with a course and using the powerful CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools featured therein. the author himself is perhaps the premier teacher in the country on this subject and if you're really interested in software design and you are in new york by all means make every attempt to attend his class at columbia university. if not, then i guess this text by itself might be the next best thing. in any event, this book will serve as a useful guide to both the student and seasoned software design professional.

This book provides a systematic approach and clear, detailed information about so many topics: e-commerce system design, system applications and reengineering legacy systems --- in short, every facet of developing software solutions -- that any individual involved in or interested in establishing the requirements and design of a system will find this essential reading. and not only is this a good read, but it's a totally decent reference as well. Excellent!

This is a terrible book. It is completely unfocused. It moves from topic to topic without any worthwhile detail about any specific topic. Concepts are not adequately explained -- either you already understand the topics in this book, in which case you don't need this book; or you don't already understand the topics in this book, in which case this book will not help you understand them. If you want to learn about database design, buy a good book on that subject (for example, Hernandez). If you want to learn about object-oriented design, buy a good book on that subject. If you want to learn about writing requirements, buy a good book on that subject. It is ridiculous for the first reviewer to suggest that this book teaches anything useful about writing requirements. Don't waste your money on this book - it's completely useless.